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Seattle Mayor Covers Up Study Supporting Coal Export Terminals

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn was shown this week to have attempted to conceal the results of a study he commissioned that examined the economic impact of expanding coal trains and exports from Washington's ports. This move is especially damning in light of his December press conference touting the study. McGinn, a vocal critic of an expansion of coal train traffic in the Pacific Northwest, has been accused of burying the report because it did not support his position and his anti-energy agenda.

Mayor Mike McGinn called a news conference beneath Seattle’s Great Wheel in December to announce he would request a study into the economic impact of sending more coal trains through Seattle.

But after the report was completed, the mayor waited for more than a month — and a public-records request — to quietly release the results on his blog Friday.

The article gives a strong clue as to McGinn's motivations:

The report’s author, Community Attributes President and CEO Chris Mefford, said he submitted a rough draft to McGinn in April and a final version July 10.

McGinn’s blog post was published more than five weeks after that — and within nine minutes of giving the report to The Seattle Times in response to a public-disclosure request filed the previous week.

The mayor’s post included a link to a memo from the anti-coal Sightline Institute that criticized the report.

The mayor had asked Sightline to critique a draft of the report in June, Mefford said. [emphasis added]

I've reported previously about Sightline's duplicitous claims about coal dust, traffic effects and other supposed horrors of fossil fuel trains rolling through the countryside. This is the nonpartisan outfit that is attempting to make the coal train issue the Spotted Owl of this decade. It is curious that Mayor McGinn would not seek a more unbiased organization to provide a 'second opinion' on the study that he himself commissioned.

At Western Liberty Network's Third Annual Leadership Training Conference and Expo, 104 attendees from Oregon and Washington spent a pleasant Saturday learning how to take responsibility for their local governments and change the fabric of their political cultures.

The minimum wage has been a major plank in the Democratic platform for years, with lawmakers continually pushing for increases, both at the state and federal level. Earlier this year, President Obama made a hard push for an increase in the federal minimum wage from it’s current level of $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, backed by Harry Reid and a majority of Democrats in the Senate.

On July 31, a joint press release was issued by Whatcom (WA) County, the Washington State Department of Ecology, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announcing the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed coal export terminal and rail spur at Cherry Point. The proposed study opens the door for state and federal bureaucrats to decide that global warming impacts, local atmospheric conditions in foreign countries and other non-local impacts can be considered in the approval process.

This weekend, environmentalists in Portland and Vancouver (WA) staged several protests against fossil fuel use in an attempt to raise awareness of the evil of petroleum products. As I've reported, one of their big issues is to try to turn the transportation of coal via rail into the Spotted Owl of this century. They're pulling out all their old tricks to try to appeal to the Portlandia spirit and gain the sympathies of voters in the region.

New data shows Houston pulling ahead of New York City as the largest goods exporting region in the country. The cause? Texas' thriving economic climate, regulatory friendly environment, and energy boom. The state of Texas has been the nation's leading exporter for eleven consecutive years, so the shift in goods exports dominance isn't exactly surprising, but is certainly noteworthy.

On May 21, Washington Rep. Liz Pike introduced House Bill 2063, which would open up educational opportunities for children in her state. This bill would establish educational tax credits allowing Washington’s children to have access to more educational choices. Washington currently has very few options for school choice, and if passed, this would be a huge boost for education reform there.

It happened again. A peaceful gathering of truth-seeking progressives was marred by a small group of violent anarchists. These politically unaffiliated youths unexpectedly took over a polite May Day celebration in Seattle, to the horror of the placid, tolerant majority.

Years ago, Illinois decided that smoking was bad for its citizens and put a cigarette tax into place thinking they'd do two things: one, break the people who live there of a nasty filthy habit that was shortening their lives and keeping the Democratic politicians who cared about their fragile health up at night, and two, raise a little cash for a state that is so far in debt California won't be seen in public with it anymore.